Innovation

The Farm of the Future Initiative emerged in Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada; the town where McCain Foods was founded in 1957. The initiative began in 2021 as part of McCain’s goal to research regenerative farming practices and educate farmers on how to adopt them. The second location opened in South Africa earlier this year. McCain Foods was the only party involved in the development of this project, although they share their findings with agricultural producers globally.

This innovation strongly relates to a sense of mission. McCain Foods is committed to a greener future on the farm level, and the Farms of the Future are a direct product of McCain’s mission. In the coming years, the Farms of the Future will continue to contribute to global agricultural knowledge and educate major producers on regenerative practices. “We take on the risk… not only what works but also what doesn’t work” Hanna McKinney explains when asked about innovative practices at these facilities. McCain is committed to experimenting with new practices and taking on all the financial risk, so smaller growers won’t have to. Hanna went on to explain how the Farms of the Future address the SDGs, Responsible Production and Climate Action. She says “it’s about giving back what you take”, and discusses sustainable soil practices and McCain’s goal to become carbon positive.

Inspiration

An interviewee from McCain Foodservice’s North America Agriculture department reveals that ‘Farm of the Future Initiative’ is a leading-edge approach to agricultural sustainability. This initiative emanated from an intense dedication towards facilitating financial and technological aid in support of farmers around the globe based on sustainable agricultural practices. McCain’s smart and sustainable farming approach encompasses the key elements of thriving communities, plant-friendly food, smart and sustainable farming, as well as resource-efficient operations that form part of McCain’s Sustainability Strategy.

This innovation is driven by a number of factors. It also tackles the urgent requirement of reducing the artificial supply used in farming, like fertilizers and pesticides, hence limiting the harmful impacts. Such is an approach towards saving biodiversity, at the same time lowering the production of nitrous oxides, which form one of the primary greenhouse gases. Hanna McKinney from McCain Foodservice highlighted, "We do a lot of work with reducing the synthetic inputs... protecting our ecosystem, we take a holistic approach to farming."

The second important element that forms a part of this program centers on precision farming aimed towards applying inputs in appropriate amounts while ensuring optimum utilization of supplies. McCain uses modern information technologies such as remote sensing and spatial data analysis to track and verify the implementation of sustainable growing practices by their growers. "We collect data from our growers annually... we're developing remote sensing technology spatial data... to ensure that we're measuring our metrics, they're verified, they're audited"-Hanna McKinney

Overall, the ‘Farm of the future initiative’ is an expression of McCain’s leadership in sustainable agriculture and for environmental cleanliness. This creative venture seeks to preserve the planet and sustain the agricultural population.

Overall impact

The impact of the innovation on the business is mainly in research and continued learning about the future of regenerative agriculture. This innovation also helps create new suppliers that eventually will have enhanced crops that Mccain’s can use to increase revenue and lower supply costs.

This innovation could have a huge impact on society. Farms and farmers are essential to the creation of many different foods, which means any developments and enhancements in the farming process will directly benefit anyone buying food at the grocery store. Whether this is through higher quality goods, cheaper prices, or more stock on the shelves.

With one of the main focuses of farms of the future being finding crops that can contribute to regenerative agriculture, the environment could benefit significantly from farms of the future. One of the biggest impacts is limiting the agro-chemical impacts of farming, by limiting fertilizer usage. This is done by using crops that act as fertilizer if/once they die. Farms of the Future also creates biodiversity, by introducing new plants and crops to the farms participating in the Farms of the Future program.

The short-term effects of Farms of the Future is a 17% decrease in fertilizer application and a 2% decrease in emissions at the farms participating in this program compared to Mccain’s regular farm suppliers. As this is a rather new innovation we have yet to see the true long-term effects. The main long-term effects will likely be similar to the short-term effects just on a larger scale and larger timeframe.

Business benefit

The Farms of the Future provide business benefit in that they provide major insight into new growing techniques. McCain has and will continue to implement new practices that were discovered on their Farms of the Future, ultimately increasing their output. Further, the development of the Farms of the Future will attract powerful shareholders and investors as McCain continues to lead the charge in regenerative agriculture.

Social and environmental benefit

The societal benefits of the Farms of the Future program are mainly the benefit it will have on prices. By reducing the application of fertilizer the price of the supply will be directly lowered meaning the price that the products using these supplies will also be directly lowered. Another societal benefit could be that by expanding the type of crops used, the quality of the food sold at grocery stores could increase, as farmers find new crops that work better for their farm and crops that work better together.

The environmental benefits of the farms of the future program are decreased emissions and also decreasing the chance of toxins from the fertilizer from entering the eco-system. The Farms of the Future program also focuses on limiting soil disturbance which limits the impact on the ecosystem that the farm is a part of.

Interview

Hanna Mckinney, Sustainability Strategist

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